Fearne: “There are good eggs out there!” How to ignore the tw*ts and stay positive

What’s been going on for you this week? What are you happy about, and what’s really not floating your boat? Fearne’s here with more chat about what’s putting her, Team Happy Place, and you lot in a good mood, and what’s feeling a bit heavier too. This is our space to explore what’s been on our minds. Want to join the chat? Send us a voicenote, DM, or comment on Instagram @happyplaceofficial! In this chat, Fearne explores: -The wholesome dream of growing your own food -Finally being paid to create the stuff you love -Being in awe of Marilyn Monroe -Sending your kid to high school when they’re not ready to cope -Why there’s always something on the Being A Grown Up to do list -The dull details of buying new white goods -The people who insist on being tw*ts to strangers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:17Fearne Cotton?

  Well, hello everybody. How are you? I'm Fern Cotton. Welcome to Happy Place.

• 1:25Fearne Cotton?

  So when I was at the Happy Place Festival recently, one of the lovely festival revelers came up to me and said, "I really like the solo eps where you're just chatting because I listen to those when I'm just out walking and it's nice to hear you just chatting a load of shit." I was so relieved because sometimes I think, "What the fuck am I wanging on about?" So to that lady, I can't remember your name, I'm so sorry. Thank you for that feedback because that has been great motivation for me to sit here and do this all over again. So let's vent and let's celebrate things that we love too. Let's start with the likes this week. So you lovely lot have been messaging on Instagram telling us, "What is massively floating your boat this week?" Donna says, "Harvesting my own produce from my back garden."

• 2:10Fearne Cotton?

  Donna, you are living the dream. I can definitely see this in my future. I would love to grow, I mean, let's be honest, let's start with tomatoes. They're easy, aren't they? My dad's got so many tomatoes growing in his garden all through the summer and runner beans. They seem like easy produce that I could cope with. I'm not at all green fingered, but Donna, this is where I am headed. And actually, what I love is recently I went and, I can't even about to say this, I went and picked some plums from my friend's plum tree. Sounds like very cheeky euphemism, but straight up I picked some plums from a tree. And then I made plum jam.

• 2:54Fearne Cotton?

  And oh my goodness, this is the nicest jam I've ever eaten. I put some cinnamon in there, so it's plum and cinnamon. I am spreading jam on everything. It is dreamy. So Donna, this is my future. You're my inspiration. Also, listener Helen says, "People are seeing my artwork and I'm getting orders." Now that is exciting because art is one of those things that we're certainly warded off of doing seriously at school. Like, "Oh, it's a side subject. Don't think of art as something that you could possibly do in the future." And of course, it is still incredibly hard to manage to sustain a career and pay bills from just being an artist. It's sort of like this historic thing that it's very hard to sell artwork.

• 3:39Fearne Cotton?

  So I am thrilled for you that people are seeing your artwork. I'm not sure how you're getting it out there, maybe Instagram or TikTok, however you're doing it. I love that the digital space is really highlighting great artists. And I'm so glad that people are liking it and they're buying it. I'm absolutely thrilled. I am definitely fully in swing in my art era. And this is my big like for not only this week, for this hopefully new chapter of my life. I didn't give myself time to paint for years and years and years. Only recently, in the last, I'd say, two years, have I entertained the idea of painting for the fun of it. I'm not doing it for any other reason.

• 4:20Fearne Cotton?

  I spend a whole day painting and I feel totally in joy, like pure joy, painting. And also I'm trying to go to as many art exhibitions as humanly possible. So recently I went to My Happy Place, which is the National Portrait Gallery. I try and go like three, four times a year if I can. And I went to see the Marilyn Monroe exhibition and it was just the most beautiful space to walk around, to see these incredible images of her taken by photographers who had seen that special glimmer that she had, that charisma, that like something else. And you can really see it in these pictures. I just walked around in awe.

• 5:05Fearne Cotton?

  And actually, at the Happy Place Festival back in early September, I spent, I reckon, a good 30 solid minutes talking to Tom Reed Wilson about that exhibition because he went to and felt as passionately about it. It was, oh, there's one picture of her where she's like leaning back like this and the wind is blowing in her face and she's on a beach. And that picture, I actually like had some tears in my eyes looking at it. I was like, "That's how I want to feel, like free and liberated." And that photographer had captured it so special. So me and Helen, we're in our art era and I'm here for it. Let's move on to things we want to put in the bin, quite frankly.

• 5:50Fearne Cotton?

  So we'll start with you lovely listeners. Jennifer says, "Making decisions about high school when I know my child won't cope and neither will I." Jennifer, I so feel you. I've got one kid in high school, secondary school, one kid starting it next year and it is overwhelming. Sometimes I think we do really, really worry that our kids will struggle. And actually, I'm hoping they cope much better than we think because I think schools have got better support systems now, whether it's SenCo, you've got learning support or teachers that you can go to if your kid's having a rough time, which definitely wasn't the case back when we were at high school.

• 6:33Fearne Cotton?

  The thing that I know we won't cope with, Jennifer, are the WhatsApp groups, the school WhatsApp groups. Why? Why are they pinging all day long? And even if I've got my phone on silent, I get to the end of a workday, check it out. I've missed like 97 messages. It's like, it's nuts. It's insane. Our parents coped absolutely fine with going, "Bye, have a good day at school." And they'd see us at the other end. They didn't know what we did there, what homework we had or what extracurriculars were going on. They didn't have a clue. I might as well go to school with my kids, I know so much. It is a joke. So Jennifer, I'm there with you, babes. Now from Team Happy Place, Anushka says,

• 7:16Fearne Cotton?

  "There's always something on being a grown up list to do. A fuse has blown, a prescription needs ordering, there's an appointment to book, the fridge needs defrosting, etc." This is why I think at the moment I feel so utterly drained is because that list is never ending. At the moment, top of my list, these are things I've been putting off for so long. I can't tell you, they just stay on the list. I write a new one and have to transfer it to the new list. One of them is just order a new tumble dryer. Just do it. My tumble dryer hasn't worked for, I mean, it's years. It's years and years and I moan about it constantly. I'm like, "I've got to put it on again. I've got to hang something out in the one window of sunshine that there is."

• 8:02Fearne Cotton?

  Like it or like hang towels on the back of chairs because my tumble dryer is shit. I've had it for about 12 years and it's from the previous owners from when I moved into the house. This thing could be like 40 years old. Why won't I just buy a new one? I'll tell you why. I can't be arsed. I can't be bothered to work out if I should change and get a tumble dryer that has the little water drawer or is fitted to the mains. I haven't got the capacity for any of it and I'm boring the shit out of myself, even talking about it now. So yeah, I feel the same. Being an adult with this never ending to do list of boring shit. "My knee, my knee. I need to get my knee sorted." I said that at the end of the summer, once I got the Happy Place Festival's out the way,

• 8:47Fearne Cotton?

  I'd get my knee sorted because I can't run. Have I done it? Have I even booked a doctor's appointment? No, no, I have not. So my knee is fucked and it will probably remain fucked until I get around to sorting it out. On my put it in the bin list this week is people being assholes. It's, it's literally that simple. So I am still tired slash buzzing from the Happy Place Festival, mainly because I had this delightful experience, as I do every year, walking around, meeting good eggs, like people that are kind. And then I would have met someone at the festival who turned up on their own

• 9:30Fearne Cotton?

  and then a lovely group of people enveloped them into their group and off they went on their jolly way. And I felt like, "Oh, this is such a good slice of humanity." I feel hopeful. I feel optimistic. And then the very next day, the day after the Manchester Happy Place Festival, I was crossing the road with my daughter and a motorbike that I could barely see that was so far away was going, I reckon, 40 in a, as we know now, on all roads, 20 mile per hour speed limit. So I actually stopped and went, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, slow down." And I was at a Pelican Crossing, so it was like a green or red man situation. But this guy was so far away, I could have walked at a totally normal pace if he was going 20 and I would have been in another postcode by the time he'd reached the Pelican Crossing.

• 10:16Fearne Cotton?

  So I'm saying, "Whoa, whoa, why are you going 40?" He's giving me shit going, "What are you doing crossing the road?" And I was like, "I can't be arsed. I've got my daughter with me." And then a woman on a bike is coming from the other direction. She goes, "Well, it wasn't a green man, was it?" And I just thought, "Really? Really? I'm just trying to cross the road with my 11 year old. We're having a post dinner walk to look at the sunset and I am being bombarded by people that I don't know, giving me shit." So that was like a good test from the universe to go, "Right." This is not showing you that actually the Happy Place Festival was a load of old shit. And actually, humanity is awful. It was a test for me to go, even when other people are

• 11:00Fearne Cotton?

  projecting their anger on you, stay with that mindset that people are great. There are good eggs out there that want to be kind and want to be helpful and want just to create a nice atmosphere. So I'm putting assholes in the bin. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Happy Place where we celebrated the simple, pure joys in life and also put in the bin a bunch of shit that we just, we can't be doing with, quite frankly. If you would like to send yours in, head to our Instagram, send us a little DM. We would love to hear from you and we might include yours in a future show. And whatever mood

• 11:42Fearne Cotton?

  you're in this week, good, bad, ugly, if you've been bombarded by assholes, you've got this. Love you.

• 11:57Speaker 04

  Then I thought, what if I've scaled businesses? What if I scaled my philanthropy? What if I did as much in one year as I've done in my whole life?

• 12:04Speaker 00

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• 12:09Speaker 05

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• 12:39Speaker 01

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• 13:09Speaker 02

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO, and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.